Classic Compatibilism and Commonsense

Thanks to all who attended the Pacific APA session on “Classic Compatibilism” with myself, Bernard Berofsky, Randy Clarke, and Al Mele, and thanks especially to Joe Campbell for organizing and chairing.

As always at these things, there wasn’t enough time so I thought I’d use the blogosphere to round out the discussion.

Dispositions and Classic Compatibilism

I'll begin with a few remarks about a view that  Berofsky calls 'Dispositional Compatibilism", which he attributes to me and says is mistaken. 

I admit that I once wrote a paper with the deliberately provocative title "Free Will Demystifed: A Dispositional Account".   However, I didn't coin the term "Dispositional Compatibilism", and I wish here to explicitly disown it, for three reasons.   (In addition to the fact that 'Classic Compatibilism' has a much classier sound!)

First, it's given some people the false impression that I am committed to claims that are clearly stupid.  I say that we have abilities to act  by having certain dispositions, and that having the ability to choose and act otherwise entails having certain dispositions.  I don't say that any time you have a disposition, you have something with the ability to refrain from acting, nor do I say that any time something has a disposition, it is up to that thing whether it manifests its disposition.  I don't say that a lump of sugar has the ability to refrain from dissolving. Nor do I say that it's up to the sugar whether it dissolves when placed in water.  That would be stupid.

Second, it's given some people the false impression that I am committed both to the claim that we are agents with free will by having the relevant dispositions to act and choose  and also to the claim that something like Lewis's Reformed Conditional Analysis of disposition is correct.  I'm inclined to defend the second claim, but I don't need to.   No one doubts that dispositions like fragility and solubility (that is, dispositions with an intrinsic causal basis) exist. My claim is only that the dispositions that ground the facts about our agency and free will are dispositions of that kind -- whatever that turns out to be. 

And, finally, I don't like the name because it conveys the false impression that my defence of compatibilism is limited to the claim that the abilities relevant to our agency and free will are intrinsically based dispositions.  My earlier paper may have given this impression, though even in that paper I explicitly said that the ability to choose is not any single disposition, but, rather,  a bundle of dispositions (roughly, those dispositions that make it true that we have the ability to make choices on the basis of the evidence available to us, our reasons, and our reasoning).  However, in today's paper, I introduce a distinction, between narrow and wide abilities, that is neutral between compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts of ability, and which therefore does not pre-judge the question of whether our abilities to act are dispositions (or bundles of dispositions). To have the narrow ability to do something is to be in some intrinsic state that makes it true that you have what it takes to do that thing. To have the wide ability to do something is to have the narrow ability to do it and also for it to be true that nothing extrinsic renders you unable to do that thing. Narrow abilities are, by definition, those abilities that are shared by duplicates governed by the same laws; wide abilities are the abilities that are not shared by duplicates governed by the same laws.  Since we may be rendered unable to do something by prison guards or Frankfurt-style interveners, having the narrow ability to do something is not sufficient for being able to do that thing in the sense relevant to deliberation and choice.  When I say that I believe that determinism is compatible with the ability to choose as well as do otherwise, I mean that it's compatible with not only the narrow but also the wide ability to choose and do otherwise.  So, to bring it back to dispositions: I believe that we have narrow abilities to act and choose by having the appropriate dispositions or bundles of dispositions, and I believe that we have the wide ability to choose and do otherwise by being suitably lucky with respect to our surroundings.  To use the terminology of the dispositions literature, determinism does not entail that we are always masked or finked. If we've got what it takes and have the right kind of luck in our surroundings, then, I say, we are not only able (wide) to choose and  do what we actually choose and do; we are also able (wide) to choose and do otherwise.  What more could you want?

Objections to the Bundles of Dispositions Account

Bernie and Randy both cited cases they thought were counter-examples to the  'bundles of dispositions' account that I defended in my earlier paper.  Bernie said that the panic-stricken woman I described in that paper has the ability to scream (the causal basis of the disposition is still there), but can't scream because she can't try to scream. Randy said that he has the ability to choose to crow like a rooster despite his lack of any disposition to so choose.  Randy also said that he might have a disposition to choose compulsively to wash his hands, but his choice is neither free nor up to him.  

I don't think these are counter-examples.  I say that the panic-stricken woman retains the ability (and the disposition) to scream if she tries; if we don't hold her responsible it's because we think she's temporarily lost the ability to choose or try to scream (and, I claim, she's lost at least one of the dispositions in virtue of which she has this ability). I deny that there is any such thing as the ability to choose to crow like a rooster; there is only the ability to choose whether to crow like a rooster. Randy exercises this ability when he contemplates the matter and decides not to produce this interesting sound effect.  For the same reason, I deny that the correct description of a compulsive hand washer is that the person makes a compelled choice to wash his hands.  Either Randy chooses whether to wash his hands - in which case his choice is free and up to him - or he not only doesn't, but cannot, choose whether to wash his hands. In either case, there is no such thing as the unfree choice to wash one's hands; here I agree with Frankfurt. ("Concerning the Freedom and Limits of the Will").

Randy's Attempt to Save the Consequence Argument

Randy tried to save the Consequence argument by arguing that if determinism is true we can't stick with our commonsense beliefs about our abilities by endorsing my (A1), which says that my ordinary ability to raise my hand is merely the surprising but non-incredible ability to perform some act such that if I had done it,  the laws or the past would have been different.  He says that we are forced to endorse a version of my (A2), which says that my apparently ordinary ability to raise my hand is actually the incredible ability to do something such that if I had done it, my action would have caused the laws or the past to be different.  We are forced, he claims, to say that my apparently ordinary ability to raise my hand is, in fact, the incredible ability to bring it about that miracles occur. (This is, presumably, a way of bringing it about that the laws are different.)

I am puzzled by Randy's insistence that the Classic compatibilist must endorse Lewis's theory of counterfactuals.  I'm happy to grant him that Lewis's theory works pretty well; it might even be the closest approximation we have to a correct theory for a large and important class of counterfactuals.  But not everyone agrees, and at the end of the philosophical day it might turn out to be the case that we always evaluate counterfactuals by holding the laws fixed.  And if that's so, there is no question of common sense being committed, if determinism is true, to the claim that we have the ability to bring it about that miracles occur.  So my question for Randy is this: Does his attempt to save the Consequence argument require the truth of Lewis's theory of counterfactuals?  And if it doesn't, what is wrong with the  "equivocation" response to the argument?  In my paper, I gave Lewis credit for that response, but versions of the same reply were also made by John Fischer ("Incompatibilism", 1983, "Freedom and Miracles",1988, and The Metaphysics of Free Will, 1994); Gary Watson ("Free Action and Free Will",1987); and, most recently, by John Perry,  ( "Can't We All Just Be Compatibilists?", 2008).

But let's grant Randy the claim that Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, or something in the ballpark of Lewis's theory -- perhaps the theory defended by Jonathan Bennett in his recent book, A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals -- is correct.  I still think he's wrong to think that commonsense plus determinism commits us to incredible claims about our abilities.  Let me try again to explain why.

Pretend that determinism is true. I say that common sense doesn't,  for that reason, turn out to be mistaken.  I can raise my arm, right now.   Past tense: I could have raised my arm, a moment ago, even though I didn't.  I had the (wide) ability. I was able to do it.

Why do I think this?  All sorts of reasons, including my past and present experience of raising my arm.  I believe that I've got "what it takes" - I have the skills, competence, and physical capacity to raise my arm.  I also believe that there was nothing in my surroundings that would have prevented me from raising my arm; I believe that if I had chosen or tried to raise my arm, just then, I would have done so. 

Randy says that determinism plus Lewis's way of evaluating counterfactuals makes trouble for commonsense.  If I persist in saying that I'm able to raise my arm, I must say that I'm able to perform miraculous actions. 

I disagree.  I say that I'm able to raise my arm. That's no miracle.  And if I had, contrary to fact, raised my arm a moment ago, that would not have been a miracle either.  The event that Lewis calls 'the divergence miracle'  would have been over and done with by the time I raised my arm.

Randy says that  if I had raised my arm, my choice would have been the miracle. And since choices are actions, my claim that I'm able to raise my arm commits me to the claim that I'm able to perform miraculous acts (and thus able to bring it about that miracles occur).

Again, I say 'no'.  I say that I was able to raise my arm.  I agree that if I had raised my arm, my choice might have been the divergence miracle.  But it need not have happened this way. I can raise my arm without performing any prior mental act of choice -- on impulse, whim, because I just happen to feel like it. So it's false that if I had raised my arm,  this would have been because I first performed a miraculous act of choice.

But don't I agree, then, that I have a miraculous ability to choose?

No.  I believe that I was able to choose whether to raise my arm.  That's not a miraculous ability.  My reasons for believing that I have this ability - and had it a few minutes ago - are similar to the reasons I have for believing that I am now, and was then, able to raise my arm. I've had lots of past experience of making choices in general and choices concerning arm-raising more specifically.  I've got no reason to believe that I am now, or was then, in a state that renders me incapable of choosing whether to raise my arm; I'm not asleep, hypnotized, under the influence of mind-altering drugs, or subject to the manipulations of a nefarious neurosurgeon, and so on.  Of course, it might turn out that I'm mistaken about these facts. But if I'm mistaken, it's not because determinism is true.  So I say I remain entitled to my commonsense belief that I was able to choose whether to raise my arm.

But, says Randy, you are ignoring the fact that if you had made this choice that you say you were able to make, that would, or at least might, have been a miracle.  Do you claim, then, that you are able to perform miracles?

No.  A few minutes ago, I neither raised my arm nor made any choice concerning arm-raising.  Commonsense says that I was able to raise my arm and I was also able to choose to raise my arm.  I affirm both claims (and have explained why). So far, no problem.   Now add determinism and the theory of counterfactuals that we are assuming is correct -- Lewis's theory.  How is this supposed to yield a problem?  I've already shown that it doesn't raise a problem so far as my arm-raising is concerned; my affirmation of my ordinary ability to raise my arm doesn't commit me to any incredible ability to perform or cause miracles.  Why think it is different so far as my ordinary ability to make choices about arm-raising is concerned?

It isn't. A few minutes ago, I made no choice about arm-raising; I didn't even consider the matter.  If I had chosen to raise my arm, there would have been some difference in my mental state beforehand, a difference that  provided me with a reason for arm-raising that I didn't actually have, or at least a reason to start deliberating about raising my arm.  It is this earlier difference in mental state that would have been the divergence miracle.  My choice would not have brought about this earlier miracle -- the order of causation would have been the other way around.  And so my claim that I was able to make that choice doesn't commit me to the claim that I was able to perform miraculous acts or bring it about that miracles occur.

We can go on in this way as long as you like. 

Is this a vicious regress? No, because I'm not claiming, as part of my analysis of the ability to raise my arm (my ability to choose to raise my arm, and so on) that I have the ability to bring about the necessary conditions for the exercise of that ability.